Greetings, everyone. I had the amazing luck recently of finding an ammunition box for the Model 1895 machine gun at an army-navy store for a mere $19.99. I was walking to the register with a Marine Corps M1941 pack set and M1942 bandage pouch when I saw this just sitting there on a stack of M19A1 ammo boxes. Naturally, I couldn't just leave it there. So, it came home with me. It is what I understand to be the early kind without the carrying handle on the end.

As you can see, the box is in remarkable condition its age. It has, however, suffered some damage to the lip along each edge of the sliding lid. I would like to restore the functionality of the lid by splicing in some appropriate wood and trimming it to size. If anyone knows what kind of wood this box is made of, it would be greatly appreciated. I suspect it is pine, and that would be convenient as I have some scrap old growth pine to hand. But, I would like additional opinions as to whether that is the case or it is some other kind of wood.

If it were me, I'd leave it as-is. Unless you're very good with wood, the "splice" will show, and be more of a detriment than an addition to the presentation of the piece. Consider the missing wood "historic patina" and enjoy it as found.

I am not talking about splicing in wood to patch the chunk missing from top edge of the vertical piece of the box. That I am leaving as-is. What I am intending to repair is the lip along each edge of the lid itself, which runs in slots cut in the inside of the vertical pieces. The repair would involve carving out wood along each edge, gluing in an oversize piece of stock in the carved-out area, and trimming it down by various means until the stock is of the proper dimensions to slide into the slots, thus duplicating the now broken-off lips which used to be along each edge of the lid.

Rather than repair it, could you not leave as is but have a number of reproductions copied from it. Id imagine there would be a market for a good quality repro. I know Id rather use a repro and keep an original safe.

If every $20.00 part that you have accumulated so far will necessitate buying a machine gun to go with it, you will probably have the largest MG collection in the world some day.

Jim C

Only half-joking, Jim. That's what I say about buying bayonets and cartridge belts.

Rather than repair it, could you not leave as is but have a number of reproductions copied from it. Id imagine there would be a market for a good quality repro. I know Id rather use a repro and keep an original safe.

That is an interesting idea, m3bobby. I will give that some serious consideration.

Alrighty. After much thought, I decided that a reproduction is perfectly within my capabilities. As a first step, I drew up the box's components in CAD. This is just an initial draft. I will dimension and label it further.

Alrighty! The drawings and quantity take-off for materials are finished. I will be going to a local lumber yard today to select a wood. I will probably go with yellow pine, unless anyone knows different.

Well, I went to two lumber yards close by me and they did not have suitable material. I will keep looking.

Got any sawmills nearby? That's what I do probably about 90% of the time for my projects (unless it's for plywood of course) because they have just about every type of wood, and it's way cheaper than Home Depot or other lumber yards even with the extra couple bucks for them to plane it for me. Not that pine is expensive haha.

The height at which it sits in the tripod to feed the gun (higher on the colt if put into a marlin tripod bracket), and the slots are narrower where it mounts to the tripod. I am sure there are others I haven't taken much notice of, but those are the obvious when trying to put a Colt box onto a Marlin tripod......they don't really fit. I'd guess (since I don't have a colt tripod here) that the marlin boxes fit on the colt tripods, but sit low? HTH